Pros & Cons: Sage Hill Inn in Kyle, TX

We decided to head out to Sage Hill Inn in Kyle Texas for Memorial Day weekend.  Memorial Day weekend was a chance for us to get away for a few days and enjoy the “Hill Country” of Texas.  The Sage Hill Inn is situated on 90 acres of land just outside of Austin (30 miles away). Sage Hill is close to Austin, a bunch of Texas wineries and restaurants.The Sage Hill Inn refers to themselves as a boutique hotel, spa and restaurant.  Sage Hill Inn has 16 rooms in which you are able to book for your stay.  This is great if you like having very little people around to enjoy your time away from home.  This does make it tough to book a room, so make sure to plan ahead!

Pros:

Seclusion – As your turn your car off the highway, you are greeted by the Sage Hill Inn sign as seen above.  Then you begin the journey down the long and winding one-mile road to the Sage Hill Inn.  Definitely secluded from the rest of the world.  The Sage Hill Inn is has very quiet surroundings which allows it’s visitors to easily relax!

Rustic Buildings – The Sage Hill Inn was built in 1994 and has been evolving ever since.  There has been buildings added which provides more rooms to stay, spa building and a pool/hot tub area.  The largest of the buildings serves as the front office/check in area.  As you walk throughout the first floor, you quickly realize this area holds the kitchen which will naturally lead into the dining area.  The second level of the building proves to be a great spot to view the property from the balcony.  Also, there are rooms to stay as well at this level.

Beautiful Grounds – We quickly noticed the beautiful grounds of the Sage Hill Inn.  There were many “common areas” for people to interact with each other such as the game room, outdoor game area, rocking chairs, fire pits and tree swings.  All of the areas were well maintained and there was even a small box of maps along with hiking sticks next to the beginning of the walking/hiking trails.  This was a nice touch to easily guide you through the many paths throughout the property.

The Rooms – Each room, loft, cottage, suite at the Sage Hill Inn is different.  The rooms are unique in their own ways and can provide a place to stay for a couple on a romantic getaway or a large family/group of people.  The Sage Hill Inn website, provides pictures and a description of their rooms to help guide each visitor to their perfect accommodations.  Or… if you are like us, you can see what room has a sudden last minute availability because you thought of doing this last minute!

We ended up being able to book “Thelma’s Loft” for Memorial Day weekend.  It was a nice room and provided us with a relaxing environment to unwind from work.

We also had our own private fire pit area!

Breakfast, Snacks & Beverages – Breakfast and Dinner is included in the price when you stay at the Sage Hill Inn.  There is also a beverage area (non-alcoholic) set up in the main dining area where guest can come in 24 hours a day to get water, iced tea, tea and coffee.  Each morning breakfast was hand written on a chalk board outside of the kitchen.  While you wait for plate of food to be prepared, diners are free to drink coffee and/or begin eating from the “buffet” style table of cereal, baked goods and fresh fruit.

Also snacks & cookies are put out at different times of the day to hold you over until dinner time.  Each day was different, but delicious and it was essential to stay hydrated in the Texas heat with the beverage area!  It’s a good excuse to make your way inside the main dining area.  Say to yourself, “you should be drinking more water” then go inside fill up your glass and grab a handful of cookies!  You just walked in from the pool, you deserve it… it’s vacation!

CONS:

The Pool Cleaner – The pool was great, but it had the cleaning robot in it the ENTIRE time we were there!  It was never removed, cleaned or acknowledged.  I kept having to move it or leaning it on the side to get it out of the way.  It wasn’t a huge deal, but come on take it out at some point!

The Closet – Imagine a place where you can hang your clothes or store your suitcase.  Looks kind of like a door that opens, then there is a bar for hanging said clothes and sticking that dirty wheeled suitcase at the bottom out of the way and out of view for pictures of the room.  Now, imagine if that spacious closet had a fridge in it and you weren’t able to use it for anything.  Yes, you open the door and a burst of heat from the running fridge hits you in the face.  This is our closet experience at the Sage Hill Inn.

The Dinner – Ok… *DISCLAIMER* Dinner wasn’t bad so don’t go writing this place off.  It just wasn’t great.  We had read reviews about the “great dinners” at Sage Hill Inn.  We were shown the on property garden where all of the vegetables and herbs for the meals were grown.  Sage Hill Inn talked about working with local meat purveyors for the “organic” or “farm raised”, blah, blah blah stuff so our expectations were obviously high.

Dinner was included in the cost of the room, so it made sense that all guests eat on the property.  It was nice not to have to worry about where to go or what direction to drive for dinner.  Remember that long winding road at the entrance?  Imagine how tired you would be after moving that damn robot cleaner around the pool all day!

Each dinner was a 3-course meal: Soup/Salad, Main and Dessert.  We received our first dinner (main) and looked at each other.  I said to Amanda “How’s your pork chop”?  she replied “Good”.  Amanda asked me “How’s your steak”? “Good” I replied.  Both of our responses had that touch of disappointment.  Again, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t meeting our expectations.  That was issue #1 with the dinner.

Issue #2 – The portions were very small.  The below picture is a plate of meatballs.  The meatballs were the size of one of those rubber bouncy balls you could get out of the machine at the grocery store as a kid.  I genuinely thought this was a “sampler” plate of meatballs:  If you like this, we will bring you the normal adult human being portion. Wrong!

So would we come back or recommend the Sage Hill Inn to our readers?

Overall, we had a great time at the Sage Hill Inn over Memorial Day weekend.  The pool, although it had the cleaning contraption in it the whole time, helped us enjoy our stay.  It was a great way to relax and enjoy the sounds of silence in the Hill Country of Texas.  We hiked the trails around the property to Onion Creek, played washers and used the tree swings.    FYI… If you like BBQ, The Salt Lick is about 10 minutes away!  Bonus, it was an easy drive from Houston so it made for less travel time and more relaxing time for us!

Have you been to the Sage Hill Inn?
If not, have you been to Hill Country?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, let us know in the comments!